Chard, Pinot, and Gamay TNs (Summer 2025)

[Pavel Tchichikov]

originally posted by Claude Kolm:

originally posted by Pavel Tchichikov:

originally posted by Claude Kolm:
So for the Écard fans, how do you compare them to the Savignys of Bize, Camus-Bruchon, Guillemot, Pavelot, Chandon-de-Briailles, Rollin?

stylistically or hierarchically?

Both.

Stylistically I don't see a strong resemblance among these. Please bear in mind that I drunk up the Ecard wines from the 80s and most from the 90s a while ago, perhaps too quickly, so my impressions may be warped both by time and sentimentality.

As I had experienced them at the time, the closest stylistic parallel - obviously adjusted for terroir - are the wines from Jacques Seysses. While complete, they were sappy, "sexy," and irresistible enough to confuse the uninitiated into drinking rather than cellaring them. I still have marks on my forehead from banging my head against the wall after retasting the wines from both producers at the age of 10+. They were very serious.

I only know Aux Grands Liards from Rollin, and not nearly as well as their Pernand, but it feels like an outlier as a "cooler" style of Savigny. Pavelot ages well but strikes me as a bit square-shouldered compared to everyone else on the list. Bize is the opposite of (at least according to my description) Moe, no? Perfectly balanced but tight as nails when young, slowly unwinding towards elegance and dirt transparency rather than succulence. Forget Briailles. Camus is an interesting case in that they (in the era under Lucien when I got to know them) were also quite juicy early on, but would always take a few years to integrate their perfectly proportioned 20-25% new wood before transitioning towards forestal complexity, so quite a different evolution curve at the end of the day. Perhaps pre-2003 Guillemot may be the closest, but here I also suffer from insufficient sampling, as well as no track record of tasting them on release. [Incidentally, I am glad to see Yule's positive '23 report and hope that it's part of a trend, since the wines in the mid-late 00s - while certainly very nice - were squarely in the second tier of the appellation, most likely due to onslaught of machine harvesting]

 

[Rahsaan]

originally posted by Pavel Tchichikov:
... pre-2003 Guillemot may be the closest...in the mid-late 00s - while certainly very nice - were squarely in the second tier of the appellation, most likely due to onslaught of machine harvesting

Yes, was it Dressner who used to rail about the machine harvesting as prime evidence of Guillemot's inferiority. I remember that from several old threads.

But does your note imply that they have given up machine harvesting in recent years? Always lots of generational changes. E.G. I read that Vincent and Philippe no longer filter the Guillemot wines, but that was common practice at the domaine in the 00s.

 

[Pavel Tchichikov]

originally posted by Rahsaan:
Yes, was it Dressner who used to rail about the machine harvesting as prime evidence of Guillemot's inferiority. I remember that from several old threads.

did he? I missed that memo :)
a famous burgundy critic was my source

But does your note imply that they have given up machine harvesting in recent years? Always lots of generational changes. E.G. I read that Vincent and Philippe no longer filter the Guillemot wines, but that was common practice at the domaine in the 00s.

no idea, actually!
just happy to hear the wines are good now

 

[Yule Kim]

originally posted by Pavel Tchichikov:

originally posted by Claude Kolm:

originally posted by Pavel Tchichikov:

originally posted by Claude Kolm:
So for the Écard fans, how do you compare them to the Savignys of Bize, Camus-Bruchon, Guillemot, Pavelot, Chandon-de-Briailles, Rollin?

stylistically or hierarchically?

Both.

[Incidentally, I am glad to see Yule's positive '23 report and hope that it's part of a trend, since the wines in the mid-late 00s - while certainly very nice - were squarely in the second tier of the appellation, most likely due to onslaught of machine harvesting]

I have some bottles of 2010 Guillemot Serpentiere that may require a check in in the near term. From my understanding, they stopped filtering in 2009, but not sure if the machine harvesting ended then. It will be interesting to see where this is.

 

[Yule Kim]

originally posted by Pavel Tchichikov:


Stylistically I don't see a strong resemblance among these. Please bear in mind that I drunk up the Ecard wines from the 80s and most from the 90s a while ago, perhaps too quickly, so my impressions may be warped both by time and sentimentality.

As I had experienced them at the time, the closest stylistic parallel - obviously adjusted for terroir - are the wines from Jacques Seysses. While complete, they were sappy, "sexy," and irresistible enough to confuse the uninitiated into drinking rather than cellaring them. I still have marks on my forehead from banging my head against the wall after retasting the wines from both producers at the age of 10+. They were very serious.

This description of aged Ecard definitely matches my perception of the '89 Ecard; it came across as very savory and serious, though there was a brightness to it that I imagine may have come across as lush when the fruit was more primary.

 

[Jeff Grossman]

So, at age 18+, shall we see how many SlB (and SlB drinkers) we can gather in one place?

I have these:
Ecard M 2005 Savigny-Les-Beaunes 1er "Les Gravains"
Pavelot, Hugues 2004 Savigny-Les-Beaunes 1er "La Dominode"
Pavelot, Hugues 2005 Savigny-Les-Beaunes 1er "La Dominode"

 

[Bill Lundstrom]

originally posted by Jeff Grossman:
So, at age 20-mumble, shall we see how many SlB (and SlB drinkers) we can gather in one place?

I have these:
Ecard M 2005 Savigny-Les-Beaunes 1er "Les Gravains"
Pavelot, Hugues 2004 Savigny-Les-Beaunes 1er "La Dominode"
Pavelot, Hugues 2005 Savigny-Les-Beaunes 1er "La Dominode"

I have some 2002 Ampeau SLB.

 

[Rahsaan]

originally posted by Jeff Grossman:
So, at age 20-mumble, shall we see how many SlB (and SlB drinkers) we can gather in one place?

I'm an enthusiastic SlB drinker and located in Nyc!

 

[Larry Stein]

I have ten 2005 SlB's from six producers and a bottle of 2008 Bize "Marconnets". However, I'm 3000 miles away.

 

[Rahsaan]

I have some Guillemot 15s and 17s, to address that era, which have always shown well for me.

 

[Jayson Cohen]

I can play 20 or older SLB with three wines. Pavelot Dominode 1998 and 2005. Marechal VV 2005, a producer that was adored in NYC back in the day but seems to have lost some favor and notoriety.

Eight other SLBs are 2007-present, surprisingly now that I look, all Pavelot and Camus-Bruchon.

Given 2007 Cote de Beaune wines are still in their prime drinking window based on statically significant empirical evidence, consider a modified program of 18+ years.

 

[Jeff Grossman]

Emendation accepted.

Not sure there's much we can do about the very very remote Mr. Stein.

So, um, possible dates for this gathering? October, perhaps?

 

[Claude Kolm]

originally posted by Pavel Tchichikov:

Stylistically I don't see a strong resemblance among these.

Because one is comparing various terroirs, along with various vintages, and so it's going to be difficult to get a real bead on style unless you regularly follow a particular producer.

Please bear in mind that I drunk up the Ecard wines from the 80s and most from the 90s a while ago, perhaps too quickly, so my impressions may be warped both by time and sentimentality.

As I had experienced them at the time, the closest stylistic parallel - obviously adjusted for terroir - are the wines from Jacques Seysses. While complete, they were sappy, "sexy," and irresistible enough to confuse the uninitiated into drinking rather than cellaring them.

With all due respect, I find the comparison to the Seysses wines of the 1980s and early 1990s very surprising. Other than both producers using all whole clusters, there was very little in common between them. Écard used 25% new oak, Seysses 100%. Remington Norman comments on how the Écard wines were dark and very tannic; the Seysses wines were lightish in color and drank beautifully at any age. I never got any sappiness in the Seysses wines. In the 1980s and into the very early 1990s, there was an overriding Dujac style that resembled very closely the Romanée-Conti style (unsurprising, perhaps, given the close friendship between Jacques Seysses and Aubert de Villaine), especially the sandalwood aromas in the wines of both (I was once served double blind a 1978 La T“che and guessed a wine from Dujac). As the 1990s wore on, there was increasingly pure expression of terroir in the Dujac wines, moving away from the overriding Dujac style. Jacques gave 100% of the credit for this expression of terroir to Christophe Morin, his vineyard manager.

 

[Pavel Tchichikov]

originally posted by Claude Kolm:
Écard used 25% new oak, Seysses 100%.

that's about the same, adjusting for dirt, no? :-)

thanks, i didn't remember what ecard used for oak back then.
interesting in that it's close to what lucien camus used in the 00s, and yet i have a hard time finding too many similarities between their versions of les narbantons except to the extent that when i taste mature versions e.g. 1988s there is sufficient convergence of great dirt expression

i think evolution curve (as perceived by this reporter) is the main difference, again keeping in mind that i am comparing tasting e.g. 1991 ecard from 1993 on to 2006 camus from 2008 on; different kinds of apples if not quite apples and oranges.

but if we are really going to do this time travel thing, i wonder if guillaume's wines are actually closer to maurice ecard's than his father's - while i said that i was never bothered by oak in lucien's wines, it would take a couple of years to "integrate" while, over the past decade of so, i barely taste any oak from the start

i have to check my notes, but it would not surprise me if guillaume - like ecard - had started using some whole cluster because (to my palate) this often builds a structural and flavor bridge and can mitigate effects of new oak in young pinot very well

 

[Claude Kolm]

Guillaume is indeed now using 30% whole clusters:

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That's consistent with a general trend in Burgundy these days to use some whole clusters (at least with the riper vintages).

But there are plenty of new tonneliers in Burgundy and barrels are often quite different from the way they were 30 years ago. Even sizing has changed, with many more demi-muids and even foudres appearing in cellars.

So much changed in Burgundy between 1991 and 2006 (and 2006 and today), that comparisons aren't really that meaningful. In many ways, it's like comparing sports stars or opera singers or painters of different eras: each has to be taken in its own context.

 

[BJ]

originally posted by Jayson Cohen:
I can play 20 or older SLB with three wines. Pavelot Dominode 1998 and 2005. Marechal VV 2005, a producer that was adored in NYC back in the day but seems to have lost some favor and notoriety.

Eight other SLBs are 2007-present, surprisingly now that I look, all Pavelot and Camus-Bruchon.

Given 2007 Cote de Beaune wines are still in their prime drinking window based on statically significant empirical evidence, consider a modified program of 18+ years.

Ya, whatever happened to Marechal?

 

[Claude Kolm]

originally posted by BJ:

originally posted by Jayson Cohen:
I can play 20 or older SLB with three wines. Pavelot Dominode 1998 and 2005. Marechal VV 2005, a producer that was adored in NYC back in the day but seems to have lost some favor and notoriety.

Eight other SLBs are 2007-present, surprisingly now that I look, all Pavelot and Camus-Bruchon.

Given 2007 Cote de Beaune wines are still in their prime drinking window based on statically significant empirical evidence, consider a modified program of 18+ years.

Ya, whatever happened to Marechal?

There was some mistake one year, I think he left some amonia or other cleaning agent in a hose that connected barrels, and so lost a lot of wine. I think Dressner dropped him about that time. He has strong sales in France, especially in Michelin-starred restaurants. I see the wines are available in the US, so someone is importing them.

 

[Pavel Tchichikov]

there were way too many discussions involving a number of very serious wine reviewers and uber-geeks that revolved around CM's use of concentrators in the 2000s not to be taken seriously, despite not everyone agreeing on when he might have started using them, and for how long.
if true, this would get you off dressner's dinner party guest list in a hurry.

 

[Claude Kolm]

I visited Maréchal fairly regularly in the first decade of the 2000s and detected no use of RO. If by "concentrator" you mean saigner, that was widely practiced at the time (and still is by some for very large vintages).

 

[Karen Goetz]

originally posted by Claude Kolm:
Guillaume is indeed now using 30% whole clusters:

Loading…

thefinewinereview.substack.com

Loading…

thefinewinereview.substack.com

That's consistent with a general trend in Burgundy these days to use some whole clusters (at least with the riper vintages).

But there are plenty of new tonneliers in Burgundy and barrels are often quite different from the way they were 30 years ago. Even sizing has changed, with many more demi-muids and even foudres appearing in cellars.

So much changed in Burgundy between 1991 and 2006 (and 2006 and today), that comparisons aren't really that meaningful. In many ways, it's like comparing sports stars or opera singers or painters of different eras: each has to be taken in its own context.

Claude, it's lovely to read your perspectives and have the benefit of your experience.